Tire inflation pressure, tire temperature, tire age and tire rotational speed are known to be important to the safe operation of a motor vehicle. By way of example, a low tire pressure will reduce a vehicle's fuel efficiency, shorten tire life but more importantly a low tire pressure can cause a tire to fail.
Monitoring tire pressure is an inconvenience. Consequently, automatic tire pressure monitoring systems have been devised and most of these systems free the user from having to manually test a tire's inflation pressure.
Known automatic tire pressure sensing (TPS) devices are typically mounted within a tire that is mounted onto a wheel. The TPS device includes a pressure sensor, which provides signals that indicate or which correspond to a pressure inside the tire. The TPS wirelessly transmits such sensor information, using a protocol corresponding to, or required by a receiver within or coupled to the vehicle. Once the receiver receives the tire operating condition information, the information is presented on an instrument panel (IP) and thus provides a real-time or near real-time indication of actual tire conditions.
Inasmuch as tire pressure information is provided to an instrument panel and thus “incorporated” into or with other vehicle information, tire operating condition information is sent by a TPS device to a vehicle using radio frequency (RF) band signals, the format and transmission repetition rate of which is defined or specified by a vehicle's manufacturer. Each manufacturer typically uses its own unique, preferred, and pre-defined communications protocol in order to meet its own needs. Stated another way, the transmitters and receivers attached to a vehicle which send information to and receive information from a TPS device in a tire require the TPS device to use the manufacturer's TPS communication protocol. A tire pressure monitor device capable of operating with different communication protocols of different manufacturers, as well as different communication protocols used by the same manufacturer would reduce the number of different TPS devices that TPS manufacturers and servicers would have to provide and would thus be an improvement over the prior art.